


Paradiesäpfel

by Abby_Ebon



Series: It's Not A Rabbit Hat [54]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Hollows - Kim Harrison
Genre: Crossover, Demons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-13 13:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/824860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abby_Ebon/pseuds/Abby_Ebon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry makes a deal with a demon for help in destroying Voldemort.</p><p>(If you don't know about Kim Harrison's Hollow/Rachel Morgan book series, well, you might want to go looking for them; this bit features the demon Algaliarept, Al for short. The title is a German term "apple of paradise" for the tomato; botanically speaking, a tomato is a fruit. </p><p>Cambion is what the offspring of a demon and a mortal are called, it survives as a Spanish word cambio meaning exchange (money), change, alteration, barter and I thought it fitting for this AU that of a might have been beginning.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paradiesäpfel

 

It was by a book that Harry Potter damned himself, a grimoire which muttered of elves and demons, and that from the seed of demons had been born wizards and witches. Harry had his mother's green eyes, and there was red that winked in the black of his hair. Harry knew what he really was, had whispered the word when the grimoire had hissed it in a whisper.

"Cambion." He did not know he had named himself, but he had – and that was when Harry Potter became Cambion the name the entire world would come to call him, in time.

A name can be useful, and _used_. It is in the using of names to which demons excel, calling one thing what it is and changing it, shaping it, knowing it. When a wizard or witch spoke a word and flicked a wand they were naming it and twisting it to what they willed and wanted.

They are in that way, like and unlike a demon, for a demon knows the moment something is named, and when it names itself, truly, they hear that name. If they are listening – Algaliarept was always, always listening to the other side, to the real world – to the world where he had loved, and lost. A name, called, can summon the named or the listener, for there is power in the naming as any proper demon knows.

The names of demons had been so long unspoken that they no longer feared forgetting, they were sure of it, and had turned to desperation and destruction, to the granting of favors for only a whisper of their name, their true names. They feared forgetting themselves if they were not reminded, for a name can be but dust, can be lost, and with the loss of that name, they too died. But names…can be changed, and that was the hope of all demons. That they could become another name – and be free – in the face of freedom, that gain, much might be lost, might be…twisted.

Cambion whispered his name into the void, the void that was a legion of shapes and shadows which ignored all that was not of their abyss, the mind was the void and the void was many minds joined in a web that all demons had within them. Cambion called out what he was, bold as gold, and Algaliarept answered, eager and curious as a cat.

"Well, aren't you lovely?" Algaliarept rumbled out of the shadows, shaping himself as someone tall, with a velvet suit the color of Harry's eyes (as Al likes Harry's eyes).

"Who are you?" Harry did not ask what, that he knew – but who, at who Algaliarept smiled.

"I? I am Algaliarept, and you- you are _Cambion_. You can cal me Al. I'd like that very much, Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived." Harry had never heard his name purred and petted, but that Algaliarept did with eager elegance. He took the accent off Harry's tongue, preferred it, perfected it- and when Harry's eyes were narrowed, his smile grew wide and his teeth were like blocks of ore, hard and unyielding, determined and demanding to be.

"Why – what do you want?" Harry takes a step back, away from him, but Algaliarept fixes his eyes on him and steps forward, once, twice, thrice. He breathes in Harry's scent, and Harry knows to be still, very still. He doesn't doubt that Al is not just dangerous, but deadly.

"To _help_ you, Cambion…you know what you are, and you are the first to name yourself as you truly are, a demon, the first on this side of reality. The rest of us, we're all trapped behind the lines of power that crisscross the world, the ley lines, some mortals call them." Al runs his fingers against Harry's skin, and the youngest demon yet shivers at the touch. Al wants to touch and be touched, to remember what it's like, because others like him – alive and in the ever after – they are all so careful of themselves, and others. They don't trust, but Harry hasn't learnt to be wary, not nearly enough yet – and Al will delight in this while he can, in touch, and in the teaching.

"What do you _need_?" Al is tempted, so tempted, to flick his tongue against this boy, his boy, to open him up and use him until the take and give of power between them burns and blurs blood and body and there is no telling one from the other until the pleasure and pain have to part them.

"I…I need, I need to live." Harry stutters it out, knowing that when the slit of Al's eyes widens that he's surprised.

"Who threatens you, Cambion? Name him…" Al urges softly, wrapping his arms around Harry and holding him close against his taller and broader body. It's a gesture as protective as it is possessive.

"They call him the Dark Lord, He Who Shall Not Be Named, he calls himself Lord Voldemort, but his mother named him Tom Marvolo Riddle." Al hums to himself, Riddle is has earned and lived up to the name he was born with, that much is true.

A riddle of names, each a truth, but not the whole truth. He's split himself up from the whole, layer by layer, like a snake shedding its skin, or a pealed onion, only a soul isn't meant to be split, or shed, or pealed apart.

"Why does he want to kill you?" This puzzles Al, for while he holds Harry he can see the boy's memories, passing though between them like flashes of lightning.

"He'll kill anyone who isn't pure blooded." That, Al thinks, isn't so bad a thing. It is, in fact a very good idea, make the world smaller, and there would be room for demons again. He pets the boy's hair and sees the red in it, thinks of blood, and things like blood, the ripe skin of apples, the taste of catsup.

Ketchup they call it now. A name that changed, with that change there is room to twist its nature along with its name. Two goals would be accomplished, the death of the Dark Lord who threatens his boy – and the remaking of the world into the shape of that Dark Lord's shadow. All it would take is the death of He Who Shall Not Be Named, and who in the end would not die for their dreams?

Algaliarept smiles, kisses the boy goodnight as he goes with the dawn – by dusk, a word has changed the world.

They call that terrible day the Turn, but it is the day of Cambion's birthday.


End file.
